How I Met Your Father
by donutsandcoffee
Summary: It's 2030 and Alfred is telling his kids how he met their father. Wrongly-remembered and slightly-altered past stories ensue. A not really University AU, Alfred X Everyone, Gilbert x Everyone.


**How I Met Your Father**

**Summary: **It's 2030 and Alfred is telling his kids how he met their father. Wrongly-remembered and slightly-altered past stories ensue. A not really University AU.

**Pairing(s): **Alfred x Gilbert, Alfred x Arthur, Alfred x Ivan, Alfred x Matthew, Alfred x Kiku, Alfred x Yao—_hell_, Alfred x Everyone. Gilbert x Elizaveta x Roderich, and Gilbert x Francis x Antonio bromance and Gilbert x Matthew later on—okay, fine, Gilbert x Everyone, too.

**A/n: **no doubt influenced by How I Met Your Mother. The plot has been decided, but the 'father' is not decided. Yes, people, **vote on who you want to be as the father**. Until then, this story is just Alfred x Everyone. Really.

Best seen in 3/4 view.

**-X-**

**One**

**Everything Started on Christmas**

**-X-**

_So, kids, I'm going to tell you the awesome story of how I met your father. —what? No! You're not being punished, don't be silly. But yes, this will take some time. Come on, don't be like that. I promise it will be interesting._

_The year is 2000—the end of it, to be precise. It was the New Year's eve, and it was a momentous day I could never forget, the day when everything started…_

**-X-**

**December 2000**

"Alfred F. Jones! I command you to _get your lazy ass off_ right now!"

Said Alfred F. Jones looked up lazily from his pillow, where he had been burying his head in for the past three hours. It was Christmas Eve, and he was _struggling_ to look up; his head was pounding heavily in a case of what he would dub years later as Alfred's Worst Hangover in the History of Ever. The voice—noise, whatever—didn't stop though.

"Alfred F. Jones!" The voice repeated, louder this time, and Alfred made a sound that was a mixture between a groan and a whimper, "Alfred _fucking_ Jones, wake the hell up! We got to celebrate Christmas—"

"The hell with Christmas, Gilbert!" Alfred snapped, and soon regretted it. The imaginary boxer in his head threw another punch and he groaned, head plopped back into the pillow. "I can't," he started again, slower and quieter this time, "I _can't_ go."

Gilbert only frowned and nudged the half-dead freshman on the shoulder, earning another moan. "Are you serious man? Come on, this is so _not_ awesome," the teen said as he sat down on the carpeted floor beside the bed, "this is the last Christmas before the new millennium comes and my roommate—my _very own roommate_—doesn't want to celebrate it with the awesome me?"

Gilbert grinned convincingly. Alfred knew he expected Alfred to nod, sit up, and give him a high five.

Alfred gave him his middle finger.

**-X-**

_Wait. Something sounds wrong, doesn't it? Oh. Yes. If it was the last Christmas before the new millennium, shouldn't it happen in 1999? Ah, that's it! It did happen in 1999! I guess I got that part wrong kids, sorry. It happened long time ago, okay?_

_Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, my middle finger…._

**-X-**

**December 1999**

Without even looking up, Alfred gave Gilbert his middle finger—

—and soon regretted it, as it resulted in the latter smacking him on the back of his head. Usually, it was quite normal for them to head each other on the back, of course, but it was not everyday that Alfred was so drunk he couldn't lift his head.

So Alfred didn't move and buried his had even more in the pillow. He didn't like telling Gilbert personal stuffs—knowing the other teen's tendency to gossip—but he didn't fancy getting another hit in the head though, so he decided to just announce the bad news.

"I just broke up."

Gilbert's hand was still in the air, pausing in between another attempt to hit Alfred. "Now, that's not a very funny joke to make—"

"Natalya broke up with me," Alfred repeated.

There was a beat as Gilbert stopped himself in shock. He looked like he wanted to say something, decided not to, and finally gave up and asked anyways, "what happened?"

Alfred groaned, rolling to his back and stared up the ceiling. He remembered flashes of events—their favorite Bougainville park, ice creams, red dress, tears… he slowly sat up as he realized that was all he remembered. The moment he broke up with his girlfriend of two years was just flashes and sounds in his head. No vivid recollections.

"I… don't remember," he replied lamely.

For a split second, a look of concern flashed on Gilbert's face, but before Alfred could really see it, the look was gone, replaced with a wide grin. "Well," Gilbert said cheerfully, "there's only one answer for this…"

Alfred could already guess what Gilbert was about to say, but he still couldn't help groaning when the other teen exclaimed, "DRINK!"

**-X-**

_Kids—kids! Don't look so bored! We're getting to the best part soon… Can you guys at least stop yourself from yawning? Drink your tea or something…_

_What? No, I'm not touching that. Did father ask you to force me to drink tea again? He did, didn't he? Well, kids, here's the thing: just because father likes tea, doesn't mean daddy does. And do you know that your father secretly loves booze more? Anyways, back to the story…_

**-X-**

It was a ballroom party.

The party was a tad too extravagant to be held by a college student, but from the experience of being in the same school as Roderich since primary school, Alfred had learnt not to be surprised of the seemingly unlimited wealth the teen seemed to possess. Formal clothes, five-star hotel ballroom, at least two hundred guests from all over the college? Unsurprising, if not expected.

"Well, typical Roderich, isn't this?" Gilbert commented, cleaning imaginary dust from his impeccable blazer. Of course, Gilbert would wholeheartedly agree with Alfred; he was, after all, Roderich's childhood friend. Gilbert had known Roderich since practically _forever_. It also helped that Gilbert's brother was quite a good friend with him.

And speaking of Gilbert's brother…

"Hey, heard your brother is applying for students' council?" He asked as he took a glass of pale yellow liquid. Presumably champagne.

Gilbert took the red-colored one as he snorted. "Oh, God, _yes_," he snickered, "can't you believe how _lame_ he is? Being in a council—so high school. It also means you can't do awesome things anymore! You know, things like throwing pranks, skipping classes."

Alfred thought of Ludwig—the calm, silent, level-headed and law-abiding Ludwig—and then of throwing pranks. The two images didn't match.

"Well, it's not like he has much chance anyways," Gilbert added, "I mean, getting in, sure. But becoming something? Like, president? I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Especially considering the fact that Kiku is also applying."

Alfred did a spit take. "Kiku? You mean top-of-the-entire-cohort Kiku?"

Gilbert took a sip from his drink. "How many Kiku in this school that you know?"

Alfred decided not to retort. His headache had thankfully subsided before he arrived at the ballroom, but the champagne had started doing its job, and arguing with Gilbert was the last thing he wanted to do tonight. He tried to change the subject.

"Hear anything about the mafia son in our school?"

Gilbert turned to him incredulously, "wait, what?"

"Heard his name is Ivan," Alfred took a gulp from his champagne, "he's Russian. Or of Russian decent. Something like that. People say he's from a respected mafia group of Braginski Family."

"Braginski. That sounded familiar…" his eyes widened in realization, "_Braginski_! Of course! I should've known why you are so interested in him."

Alfred frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Dude, it's _Braginski,_" he said the words mockingly, as if Alfred was playing with him and he was not falling for Alfred's trick, "his sister is totally going to be your sister-in-law, right? His family is going to be your family. Actually, that sounds cool: Alfred, the Mafia."

Alfred almost dropped his empty glass from the information. "Wait, wait—are you saying that," he was at loss of words; no, it wouldn't be possible, _no_, "are you saying that my brother is dating Katyusha Braginski?"

"You haven't heard? He's your _twin_ brother, for gods' sake—"

"No, I haven't!" Alfred exclaimed in frustration. He always talked about everything and anything with his twin brother Matthew; he felt a little hurt that Matthew decided not to share such important piece of information like this. Okay, maybe they didn't talk as much as they used to, thanks to Alfred's relationship with Natalya (which ended badly anyways, and his heart started to ache just to think about that). But still!

"Man…" he whined, "I can't believe my precious little brother never told me about this…"

But Gilbert was no longer listening to him. His eyes were fixed on a certain girl in a long white dress. She was taking a piece of cake, and Gilbert's eyes followed her movement.

"Gil? Hello? Gil? Earth to Gil!" Alfred tried to grab his attention, snapping his fingers in front of the teen's face. Gilbert seemed to snap back to reality, and took another drink.

"I change my mind. The party is not as awesome as I thought it would be," he declared.

They both knew it was a blatant lie. Alfred averted his eyes back to the room.

The girl, with the plate of cake she just took, approached a bespectacled teen in a very formal suit. The teen—Roderich—smiled, and the girl grinned back. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could say a word, she popped the cake into his mouth, and he blushed furiously.

Alfred knew Gilbert saw this from the corner of his eyes.

When Alfred turned back to Gilbert, he was drinking a violet-colored liquid, his expression unreadable.

"You want to bail this stupid party?"

_Because you're jealous of Elizaveta, _Alfred didn't say, but he may as well said it; his expression spoke for it.

He found Gilbert's blushing reaction to be oddly cute.

**-X-**

_You're right, kids, that's your Aunt Elizaveta we're talking about. The same old Aunt Liz._

_Oh, and before we continue, there's one thing you need to know about your Uncle Gilbert: when he's pissed, he's a bitch._

Gilbert didn't find it cute at all.

"What, you think I'm jealous?" He snapped, and before Alfred could say anything, "you think it's funny that I come here without any girl, right? Well, guess what, I'm not the only one who come here _without a girlfriend_!"

"Hey, that's uncalled for!"

_A TOTAL bitch._

"Hey everyone!" Gilbert shouted to the room. Several curious heads turned to see him, and before Alfred could say anything, he loudly announced, "Alfred just got dumped!"

There were murmurs. The music still played in the background, but that fact actually made things worse because now Alfred realized, despite the music, he could hear people were talking. Talking about _him_.

"What the hell, man?" He exclaimed and glared at Gilbert, to which the other teen merely smiled lopsidedly. Furiously, he walked up to him, swung his arm to punch him—

—and Gilbert vomited.

_Wait. Did I also mention he was drunk? Gilbert was completely drunk by that time. Remember the violet liquid drink I was talking about? Apparently, your Uncle Gil wanted to drink colored drinks according to rainbow colors that day. Don't ask me why, it's just one of those things he did._

_You might also notice that violet is the seventh color of the rainbow._

People were laughing.

Alfred felt his head dizzier again; champagne and the noise of laughter, coupled with the horrible stench from Gilbert's lunch made his head pounding. _The shirt_, his brain tried to supply a solution, _clean the shirt first._ He dragged the half-conscious Gilbert past the guests, trying to ignore their pitying glances and mocking laughter, walking out of the hotel altogether.

At the back alley, he found a water tap and, after putting down the half-conscious Gilbert on the porch, he started washing his shirt. Absent-mindedly, he looked up to see the porch in front of the hotel's entrance.

There were two familiar figures.

His heart leapt when he recognized them—one of them was Toris, a friend of his who came from the same high school. Toris was a good guy, if not too shy. Alfred liked him well enough that he still hung around him sometimes.

The other person though… Alfred wanted to smack himself for not recognizing her in the first place. The smooth, long hair, the beautiful white and violet dress, the bracelet he gave her for her birthday last year…

It was Natalya.

Alfred stood still.

**-X-**

_Kids, I have to say that this is one of the two lowest points in my life. The other one is the one involving the black Parker pen during my 20__th__ birthday, but that is another story altogether, though it's quite an interesting story by itself…. Uh, we'll get there._

_I digressed. Where was I?_

_Oh. Yeah. So, there I was. Outside of a posh hotel during the New Year's Eve, my best friend just humiliated me and my longtime girlfriend broke up with me. I was freezing, shirt soaked with cold water and vomit, and my ex walked with another man one day after our breakup. Single and miserable? That would be an understatement._

_But that, kids, was the turning point of my life._

**-X-**

Before he could stop himself, he'd called out, "Natalya."

The girl whipped her head to him almost immediately. Her eyes widened in surprise and before Alfred could say a word, she _cried._ Cried her hearts out and practically _begged_ him to go back with her, she was kneeling down and clutching the hem of his shirt, repeating how she was willing to do anything to get back with him—

_Okay, okay! You got me. Maybe she didn't beg. Much._

_Okay, _FINE_. It was _me_._

Alfred begged her to get back with him in a very manly, heroic way, not a single was shed—

_Or, maybe a bit…_

—a drop of completely manly tears slid down his masculine complexion—

_OR MAYBE A LOT. That's beside the point, kids! I was drunk!_

Alfred sobbed and sobbed, everything that had been bottled up inside of him finally exploded. Natalya pulled him, by the hand, and he followed her in confusion. Toris was only staring at them from the distance, and Gilbert started humming to himself.

They walked to a brighter space, lit by a street lamp… and she punched him in the gut.

"Are you an _idiot_? What the _hell_ are you trying to do?"

"I don't get your point," he whined, "I'm sorry Natalya but I love you please don't dump me again—"

"Alfred, are you high? _You dumped me_!"

"I'm—"

Wait.

What?

"Wait, what?" was all he said. Natalya looked both offended and sad.

"Can't you remember, Al?"

And he remembered.

They were walking side by side on their favorite park near the school compound, and she begged him to buy her an ice cream from the vendor near the Bouganville flowers. He did as she said, but he realized her face was of disappointment as she licked her ice cream.

He remembered asking her, _what's the matter?_ And seething, she replied with, _I wished you would pick some of the Bouganville and gave it to me. It's romantic, you know_. He was annoyed by her tone, and before he could think of anything, he said, _well you should've just said so,_ and Natalya, being like any teenager, whined, _but if I asked you to it wouldn't have been romantic._

At this point Alfred gave up on his logic and yanked some Bouganville. He shoved them up her face, saying, _well, here's the flowers. Romantic._ Unfortunately, he accidentally hit her ice cream cone with the flowers, and it fell down, the ice cream smeared all over her red dress.

Apologetically, he took out a napkin and quickly cleaned the stain, muttering, _I'm sorry._ Everything seemed to be back to normal again until she said, _It's okay. It's not my wedding dress anyways, and do you know, Al? I've always wanted my wedding dress to be red, like this. Do you think you mind?_

And that was when Alfred realized that the relationship couldn't go on. Sure, he liked her, and all, but Alfred had never, not once, thought about a future with her, about _their_ future. He liked her as a girlfriend, but not as a significant other that he would want to spend the rest of the world with.

So he stood up, thinking, _it's better to end this now,_ and said, "I think we should stop seeing each other."

An hour from that, he was drunk as hell in his favorite cheap bar, gulping one glass of beer after another. He only walked limply back to his room at two in the morning, and didn't wake up until Gilbert shook his body later that night.

**-X-**

"You remember now?" Natalya said lowly, and Alfred was snapped back to reality. He turned at her and realized that her eyes were still red from crying too much. He slowly nodded.

"Yeah, I… I'm sorry, I…" he coughed, collected himself and said, "I only remember the good parts."

Surprisingly, she smiled. "I understand, Al, but…" she was silent for a while, rubbed her eyes and finally continued, "we can't just remember the good parts in a failed relationship. We have to remember the bad ones too. It might be possible to just forget them, but… they won't disappear just because they're forgotten.

"We can't just run back to the past just because it's familiar. It might be tempting… but it was a mistake.

"Toris is just a friend Al. And so are you."

**-X-**

_You see, kids, when you're in love, you always close an eye. You have this magical automatic filter, deleting the bad memories from the good ones… but that isn't how true love works._

_Well, that day was certainly a momentous day. One, I learned how to get over a long, but failed, relationship. And two…_

Alfred walked back inside the ballroom with Gilbert draped all over him. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Elizaveta throwing concerned glances every few seconds, and he couldn't help chuckling to himself. _Funny_, he noted.

And so Alfred put the drunk Gilbert and some empty chairs and walked to a table, took a hamburger and turned—

And there he was; laughing lightly at Francis' jokes, his thick eyebrows crunched up in amusement and his vest draped attractively up his body, his soft laughter ringing in Alfred's ears and—

Alfred gulped.

It was official, right there and then:

He fell in love.

_And two… that was the day I met him, kids. One of the most important people in my life, the man who would change me forever…_

_Your Uncle Arthur._

_What, you thought that was your father? Hey, would you relax? I'm getting to it._

_Like I said, it's a long story._

**-X-**

**A/n: **_Psyched! _Haha. Did you think it was Arthur? Come one, how predictable would that be? I think all HIMYM fans would've seen that trick coming, but _meh_, I can't help it.

Well, what do you guys think? Was it good? In character, out of character? Do you like the format? _Who is Alfred's future husband_? You decide! (For now I'm not partial to any pairings, the only one that I won't write is Francis x Arthur. Sorry, FrUK shippers!)

Reviews, alerts, favorites, and concrits are appreciated. :)


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